


Six Months of Manchester

by RurouniHime



Series: The Arrangement series [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Comfort Sex, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 02:25:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“You need to Floo him,” Draco muttered. “Tell Davisson where you are.”</i> (A ficlet in The Arrangement universe.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Months of Manchester

**Author's Note:**

> In one of the earlier fics in this series, Draco made this statement in an inner monologue: "...and then before that, when Harry’d been rather irritatingly serious about a tall brunet wizard in the broomstick trade somewhere near Manchester." It's something I have been somewhat curious about, but Harry only very recently decided to tell me a little bit about it. So here is a snippet from the years between Harry and Draco's tumultuous attempts at exclusive relationships. I'd say it takes place more during the latter half of that separation.

Had to be two in the morning. Harry’d had little idea of time’s passage lately.

“You don’t look well,” Draco said quietly, propped on his elbow. His lower half was covered in the folds of a light blue duvet Harry didn’t recognise. The sound of the rain outside was a low thrum in Harry’s ears. He inhaled and smiled faintly.

“I’m not sick, if that’s what you mean.”

“Working here for the weekend?” It was mild, as mild as the rain, and guarded. Curious. Harry felt it as though he were buried, and it was drumming futile taps on a muffled cover stone somewhere above him. He shook his head, not speaking. Not sure what would come out.

Draco rustled the bedsheets behind him. “Harry, what?”

The answer should have been there in the name of a city, a city he was supposed to be in. Sleeping in. Existing. The answer could have been in a hundred words, a million; Harry couldn’t utter a single one of them. Malcolm’s city, Manchester, was far away tonight, miles and miles of cold, dark space and empty starlight between. 

Harry shuddered.

“You need to Floo him,” Draco muttered. “Tell Davisson where you are.” His voice was quiet, the tone peculiar and flat, but not unfamiliar. Neutrality at its finest. Harry’s throat twisted somewhere, something lodging in his chest. 

“As of last night, Malcolm Davisson is no longer part of my life,” Harry managed. His words did not sound like his own. He could hear Draco breathing, very softly. There was a new picture mounted on the wall across from Harry, just beside Draco’s open bedroom door, a picture of a crumbling tower in grays and whites with a tree behind it and Draco’s serene profile in the foreground. The wind tossed his blond hair gently as it tossed the tree branches. A sudden, brief surge of amusement flooded Harry and he turned, flashing the only smile he could muster.

At least he hadn’t been drinking. Yet. It was shocking and horrid to realise he might not have control over his own future. He could still taste Malcolm’s mouth on his and smell the hint of the shirt he’d borrowed from his former lover. Pale green, loose Muggle cotton. It was only a fancy, that was all. Harry had given that shirt back long ago, before the air of their relationship had begun to grow murky. But he still felt like he was wearing it. Wrapped in Malcolm.

“Tell me what happened,” Draco coaxed.

Harry couldn’t; his entire body knew it. He shook his head, feeling himself begin the fall.

Draco watched him wordlessly. The lamplight glowed softly down one side of his face. “You alright?”

A pale hand came up to caress the arc of his shoulders. Harry shivered fitfully, as if shedding a chill. He turned to look back, and down— at the bed, and Draco in it. It had been nearly half a year since he’d been in this room, sitting on this bed or watching watery light play over the soft-yellow walls. He wasn’t certain how he felt at finding Draco alone tonight, but he was sure it would have been relief, had his insides not been gouged into total numbness.

“I’m not,” Harry whispered. Draco’s face contracted very slightly and then masked itself again. His hand continued its slow rubbing unabated.

Gods, had it been six months? Six months of Manchester. Six months of cinnamon hints on plush couches and tabby cats and vast bedspreads. Six months of brown eyes and tanned skin, wide shoulders and feeling almost sated. He felt poisoned by a dead thing, lying inside him unable to be shed. But still… still cut and bleeding.

“Sleep with me, Draco?” he asked, so softly the breaking of his voice was only a tremor. Draco looked at him for a long moment, and then reached up, displacing the thick duvet and sending up the scents of cool air and faint forest. It jerked at Harry, deep, deep down in old, well-worn places. Draco’s hand slid around his nape and eased him down, pushing blankets aside with his other arm, bending his naked legs to bracket Harry’s hips and snug him close, familiar heat and soft skin. Harry drifted downward; he heard the whispered words of a spell, and when he finally met Draco skin to skin, his clothing and Draco’s shorts had vanished and all there was was a body he recognised so innately it stung. Draco’s chest and stomach were still defined by muscle, his shoulders slender and a little stronger than before. A tear slipped from Harry’s eye and curled down his cheek, too warm, tasting of salt as it reached his upper lip and fell onto his tongue. Draco’s fingers brushed the dampness away, then brushed the next tear away. And the next. Harry turned his gaze toward the other man’s, eyes burning with salt, already thrusting his hips against Draco’s, and burying his face in his on-again, off-again lover’s throat. 

Draco stroked the back of his neck steadily, even as his own stilted breaths became unsteady gasps, as Harry entered him, as his muscles went taut and his shudders peaked and receded again. Malcolm’s handsome face drifted in front of Harry’s closed eyelids; it broke the last wall inside him. Harry cried against Draco’s skin, clutching at his shoulders, feeling six months draining away in slow drips, and Draco’s heartbeat fluttering against his lips.

~end~

**Author's Note:**

> It is my personal belief that Draco had very little to do with the split of Harry and Malcolm. Draco is, however, a constant in Harry's life, whether they are seeing other people or not. The connection is not always physical, because they both have personal moral standards, but it is there regardless.


End file.
